One way for meeting the increasingly stringent legal requirements with respect to the fuel consumption of vehicles is to reduce the weight of the vehicles by replacing their components, which are conventionally made of steel, with light metal or plastic components. DE 10 2010 019 999 A1 discloses a motor vehicle body, in which a steel support structure surrounding a passenger compartment is covered with planking parts of aluminum. Among other things, these planking parts include an outer wall section that extends around front and rear door cutouts on a side of the vehicle. However, the coefficients of thermal expansion of steel and aluminum differ significantly such that the length increase of such an outer wall section can be several millimeters greater than that of the underlying steel support structure when the vehicle body is subjected to a high temperature, e.g. while drying the paint applied thereon. Consequently, there is a significant risk of the outer wall section locally distorting to such a degree that permanently visible traces remain when it is subjected to a high temperature.